The Skinny: A collection of four loosely connected novellas set in the Star Wars casino-city of Canto Bight, as briefly seen in The Last Jedi.

In the latest Star Wars film, “The Last Jedi,” we get a very short glimpse of the casino city, Canto Bight, a playground for the rich and powerful play while the rest of the galaxy fights for survival against The First Order. But aside from the message that nobody good profits in wartime, and a delightfully destructive chase sequence, we spend little time there. Del Rey has released a novella collection focused on four stories of gamblers, tourists, servants and criminals that call Canto Bight home, and it is a delight.
The best of the four is “The Wine in Dreams,” by Mira Grant. It follows the self-described greatest sommelier in the galaxy, Derla Pidys, as she attempts to buy a rare bottle from a pair of sisters claiming to be from another dimension, all under the nose of a dangerous night club owner who will do anything to get it.
These four stories are very much in the vein of the new Expanded Universe. You won’t see any familiar faces from the movies in these pages, but they do a magnificent job of transforming a galaxy far, far away into a living, breathing place rather than a backdrop for Our Heroes’ Adventures. They also serve as a light, quick introduction to the writing of four excellent authors. You can find Star Wars: Canto Bight on Amazon, or in person at your local independent bookstore.

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